{"id":53935,"date":"2025-10-01T10:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T10:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/53935\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T10:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T10:34:09","slug":"sarangi-lims-explosive-act-of-rage-after-being-questioned-about-child-eating-cigarettes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/53935\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarangi Lim\u2019s \u2018explosive act of rage\u2019 after being questioned about child eating cigarettes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of \"NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sarangi<\/p>\n

\nSarangi Karamea Jaque-Oddell Lim, 28, at an earlier appearance in the High Court at Hamilton, after admitting a charge of attempted murder.
\nPhoto: Open Justice \/ Belinda Feek\n<\/p>\n

A woman who was bashed with a hammer in a shopping centre carpark after she questioned why a child was eating cigarettes has described it as the “saddest day of her life.”<\/p>\n

However, the victim is now willing to forgive her attacker, Sarangi Karamea Jaque-Oddell Lim, for her “explosive act of rage”.<\/p>\n

While the victim has expressed her desire to move on from the 27 June attack last year, a court has heard how the injuries she suffered could have been a lot worse but for the help of bystanders.<\/p>\n

Today, Lim, 28, appeared in the High Court at Hamilton for sentencing on a charge of attempted murder following the incident at The Base shopping centre in Hamilton<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Jacinda Hamilton told Justice James MacGillivray that the attack only stopped when people intervened and pulled Lim away from the victim.<\/p>\n

Defence counsel Kerry Burroughs urged the judge to take into account his client’s mental health history and disorders, in the hope of limiting her jail term.<\/p>\n

The hammer attack<\/p>\n

The court heard Lim had been at The Base, where she bought several items from the Warehouse, including the hammer.<\/p>\n

After finishing her shopping, she returned to the carpark.<\/p>\n

The victim questioned her about a child who had a packet of cigarettes in her hand and was eating them.<\/p>\n

Lim became “angry and aggressive” and started shouting at the woman.<\/p>\n

The victim said she was leaving and turned away to reach into her boot when Lim struck her forcefully with the hammer, twice on the back of the head.<\/p>\n

The woman turned to face her and tried to grab Lim to stop her, but Lim hit her again, hard, in the face and head.<\/p>\n

Both the victim and Lim fell to the ground, with Lim on top of her and continuing to hit her with the hammer – and her fists – on the head and body.<\/p>\n

The attack stopped only when other shoppers dragged Lim off the victim, who was bleeding heavily.<\/p>\n

The woman was hospitalised with two large cuts to the back of her head and her upper right cheek.<\/p>\n

She also had large bruises on her back and upper body.<\/p>\n

When spoken to by police, and in her initial written statement, Lim said, “I just snapped and hit her … I bought a hammer from The Warehouse at The Base and when I got back to the car, I hit her twice with the hammer”.<\/p>\n

When questioned about her intent, Lim said: “To kill with intent.”<\/p>\n

“She’ll be lucky she’s still alive,” she added in her interview. “So I lashed out today, and I don’t give a f***.<\/p>\n

“I did attempted murder and I don’t give a s***.”<\/p>\n

‘Driven by a determination to kill’<\/p>\n

At the sentencing, Hamilton described the incident as an “explosive act of rage”.<\/p>\n

“This is, in any view of it, an explosive act of violence driven by a determination to kill, and it is as a result of the bravery of bystanders that the victim in this case has recovered well and that the injuries were not such that they were life-threatening.”<\/p>\n

Hamilton pushed for a starting point of nine to nine and a half years in prison, but agreed Lim was entitled to discounts for her guilty plea, for attending a restorative justice conference, and for her remorse and mental health issues.<\/p>\n

However, the prosecutor urged the judge to restrict the mental health discount because Lim was using methamphetamine at the time.<\/p>\n

For Lim, Burroughs asked the judge to sentence her on the injuries the victim suffered, not the injuries that could have been caused if people had not stepped in.<\/p>\n

Lim now appeared well, was getting the medication she needed, and had made the most of her time on remand, where she completed various courses.<\/p>\n

Mental health played a significant role<\/p>\n

Justice MacGillivray acknowledged the victim’s comment in her statement, in which she described the incident as “the saddest day of her life” and how she now had a desire to move forward.<\/p>\n

Given that the attack was to the head, that a weapon was used, and the injuries the victim suffered, the judge found a sentencing start point of nine years imprisonment was warranted.<\/p>\n

He noted a forensic report completed immediately after the attack found Lim was unfit to enter a plea and was deemed to have a mental disorder.<\/p>\n

She had also been subject to a community treatment order at the time.<\/p>\n

Lim had bipolar, emotional disregulation, and polysubstance abuse, involving cannabis, alcohol, and methamphetamine, the court heard.<\/p>\n

“In my assessment, your complex mental health does come to explain how you attacked [the victim].”<\/p>\n

He found her mental health “played a significant role” in the attack and, as such, reduced the sentence by 20 percent.<\/p>\n

The judge allowed a further 40 percent in discounts before landing on an end sentence of four years and three months imprisonment.<\/p>\n

“I urge you to take full advantage of any rehabilitative programmes available to you,” he told Lim.<\/p>\n

The court heard that the defendant had expressed a desire to become a social worker and to complete more courses.<\/p>\n

* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of Sarangi Karamea Jaque-Oddell Lim, 28, at an earlier appearance in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-53935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}